I had been meaning to watch “A Handmaid’s Tale” and started it two days ago.
Oh my god. I can’t tear myself away. I watched three episodes in a row, then a fourth in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. Then another first thing in the morning. Then another to reward myself for getting a couple of annoying tasks completed. Then a couple more that evening…you get the idea. It has been roughly 48 hours and I have watched all of season 1 already.
The series strikes home for me in so many ways. I am from the Boston area so all those references engender nostalgia. The political message resonates - I won’t go into details because this is CS and I don’t mean this as a politically charged thread. And I love, love, love Elisabeth Moss as an actor.
Seriously, I don’t think I can stop until I’ve watched every episode available. (I’m also reading the various threads on this message board.) It’s like an addiction. I literally start weeping during some of the more emotional scenes.
Anyone else every been so gripped by a streaming show that you just can’t stop watching? I guess this is the modern version of the “un-put-downable” book.
I didn’t watch Game of Thrones when it first premiered. I didn’t have HBO. Before the 2nd season started, Uverse had a free weekend of HBO. I had heard good things about it and thought I would just check it out. I watched the first episode Saturday afternoon and then couldn’t stop. I watched 5 more before I had to go out for the evening. I got up the next day and immediately watched the last 4 episodes. And then had to wait for season 2.
I’m the same with “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Not least because I read the novel and saw the movie, but also because the TV series is filmed in southern Ontario, where I grew up, and many of the locations are familiar.
Beyond that though, the story is gripping. The original novel had an unsatisfactory ending (sorry, Margaret Atwood), and the TV series showed what it would be. And it is scary. I won’t spoil some episodes for you, Carol, but there are some very frightening scenes you’ve yet to watch, which leave you asking, “These are human beings doing this to other human beings in the name of religion? Dafuck?”
Hey, enjoy the episode when they go to Toronto. That’s my hometown, and I know every location they show in it. Hell, I’ve been to every location they show in it. A nice reminder of a city I still love.
I binged-watched Battlestar Galactica in 2012. Like, an entire season in one sitting. Yes, really. It was (and is) that awesome. Bear McCreary’s music haunted me for long thereafter.
It’s easiest to binge watch a comedy. I caught up on the first three seasons of Community when I finally discovered it, and I think it was the first five seasons for Scrubs. I had expected to only watch one episode every couple of days, but ploughed through them all like a freak.
Recently I binge-watched the first 4 seasons of Parks & Recreation.
This past month I also binge-watched all the seasons of Future Man on Hulu.
When Game of Thrones was on, I would usually let HBO run in the background in the leadup to the new season when they would play entire seasons all day.
Several years ago I binge-watched “Leverage,” which originally ran from 2008-2012. I ended up buying all the episodes on iTunes, then stupid Pluto TV began airing them 24/7.
Back in the spring I binge-watched “Las Vegas,” which originally ran from 2003-2008.
Lately it’s been “Rizzoli and Isles,” which originally ran from 2010-2016.
I only binge-watch series television. I get a bit obsessive once I’ve reached the final year of the series is really good or if it really sucks and I just wanna complete it. I just finished Eureka. I really should have stopped watching after season two, it was just too formulaic, but I just had to finish it.
Community for me as well. When it made it’s way to Netflix (hulu?) a few months back I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I think I watched the entire series, 100+ episodes, in about a week and a half…and then immediately went back to S1E1 and started it over.
I think part of the reason that’s so easy to do with Community is that the show is so easy to get into. It’s not like so many other shows (ie The Office) where people need a push to get through the first season. It hits the ground running. It’s funny from, literally, the very first scene (The Dean giving the welcome speech and screwing up his note cards). That speech also gives us a very very brief introduction to each character and since they don’t even know each other yet, the writers don’t have to spend any time bringing the viewers up to speed on inside jokes, relationships between the various members etc.
There’s a funny Portlandia sketch on this very thing-- Fred brings home a box DVD set of Battlestar Galactica, and Fred and Carrie sit down to watch an episode or two. Days later, they’ve called in sick to work, there are empty drink and take-out containers scattered all over the coffee table, and they’re sitting there like zombies unable to stop watching. “My eyeballs have dried up!”
For me, with all the hype by the end of season 4 of Breaking Bad, I thought, maybe I should check that show out…so I started renting whole season DVD sets from the library. I didn’t get hooked right away, but I remember by season 3 saying to myself “this show is…genius!” By the time I was caught up at the start of season 5, it was downright painful to only be able to watch one show at a time and then have to wait a week.
Never streaming, but I make sure I have all the episodes of the Asian dramas I watch. One of the reasons I love Asian dramas is that they’re generally a limited number of episodes, typically 10-16. If the story continues, it’s a new season.
When I started watching the Korean My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, I watched 9 or 10 episodes (~12 hours) straight one day and the remaining 6-7 episodes the next day.
And I watched the Japanese Hitorishizuka which is only 6 episodes in one sitting.
We binged the final season of The Good Place on Netflix over two evenings when it came up. We didn’t realize the final ep. was well over an hour so we wound up sticking it until 3am. This was largly due to them suddenly yanking Once Upon a Time when we’d leisurely made it through only half of its final season.
That’s partly why I just finished binging THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. It sounded like such a fun and clever time travel comedy/action romp. I had heard such good things about it so after my Netfix queue dried up, I tried it out. Season one was just painful but I was still hooked into it. All style, no substance. Lots of long panning shots, grunty facial expressions and wildly irrelevant plot turds all set to an over played soundtrack. I’ll grant you the show has a fantastic look but the structure looks about as well thought out as a pyromaniac’s convention in a fireworks factory.
I stuck it out for season two to see if it could find it’s footing. It was an improvement but not enough for me to look forward to season three.
The first season of Veronica Mars. I’d bought the DVD on the recommendation of someone 'round here, and we burned through the first season in two days. We finished the season finale at 8:30pm on Sunday, and immediately rushed over to the store to buy the second season.
My record was S3, (maybe 4) of GOT. At the time I didn’t have cable or internet that was good enough to stream so I had to wait for them to come out on DVD and rent them. After avoiding spoilers for a year I picked up the season at the video rental store on a Friday after work, took it home and watched the whole season, back to back episodes with only an occasional bathroom/snack break. When I finished the sun was coming up.
No, I haven’t obsessively binge watched. But a friend of mine once held a weekend movie marathon where all of the James Bond movies (up to that point) were shown.